12 Sep 2012 Carteres i banderes

Trite, prejudice and some theories argue that, when things are tough in terms of money and jobs, nobody wants to hear lectures on what we are and what we want to be. The current economic crisis led some to prophesise with immense satisfaction that the days of “identity fabrication” and “nationalist farce” were numbered, since the urgent needs of the Catalan people would push aside what these prophets consider to be an irrational pseudo-ideology based on historic distortion, medieval superstitions and manipulated figures. Indeed, they forecast that once the harsh economic and social reality took over the country’s public agenda, Catalanism (or Catalan nationalism) would be redundant. And they became excited.

Once again, however, these prophets were completely wrong; just like they had been back in 1980, 1989, 1992, 2003 and 2010. Their problem is always the same: they analyse collective life with their stomach, not their brain, and tend to underestimate all those phenomena which they wish would disappear before understanding their root cause. These same people have been talking for years about post-national Catalonia and post-national Europe, and now -poor old souls!- they have to keep their mouth shut when they realise that the salvation of the Euro-zone has started to shatter the States’ classic sovereignty -something which Mariano Rajoy has been living first-hand for some months now.

Facts have completely squashed this idle talk aimed at portraying Catalanism (in all its varieties) as a fantasy far removed from the day-to-day life of the people in this country, which is opportunistically governed by a stale, provincial and corrupt cast.

What has actually happened is the complete opposite of what such well-informed minds had anticipated: the global and Spanish crisis has intensified the Catalan people’s awareness of the specific and material grievances (not only symbolic and moral) suffered by the whole of the Catalan society, including all those people who do not agree at all with the Catalanist premises or with the unspoken consensus which derives from it. The financial difficulties facing the Catalan government and the local authorities, together with the scarce credibility projected by the Spanish government, have convinced many that continuing as an autonomous region leads to a slow and tragic death.

Some have labelled this movement as “pocket separatism”, as opposed to the old separatism of historical and cultural base. Experts argue that, in most contemporary nationalisms, the interests and values of the given community become mixed in a variety of ways. In short: wallets and flags do not belong to separate universes, quite the opposite. People do their sums and, implicitly, one day they start to ask themselves what they are and what they would like to be. Even without having listened to the witticisms of the president of Extremadura.

A major success of Catalan nationalism in recent years is to have managed to explain the unfairness and unsustainability of the tax relation between Catalonia and the rest of Spain. This has sunk in amongst most Catalans and has made new groups of population embrace the flag, something that was obvious yesterday in the streets of Barcelona. Defending material interests leads to what I call “mental disconnection from Spain” and is a pre-political attitude which arises when the uneasiness caused by those constant grievances (economic, political, cultural) becomes chronic. Fatigue promotes disconnection and this is the first step towards a change in categories which many people today in this country are making theirs.

Those who -through sectarian and ill-informed interpretations- believed that Catalan nationalism was only a fiction created by the local bourgeoisie in order to strengthen its class rule nowadays are bound to understand nothing. They can no longer say, mockingly, that “they hide the purse with the flag”. All those who yesterday evening filled the streets of the Catalan capital, are they bourgeois? No way. The purse and the flag have come together because, at the beginning of the 21st century it is impossible to hide the truth, even if the central government has only once published  the balance between the tax raised in Catalonia and the government’s expenditure in the region.

Finally, however, what is important is not the purse nor the flag, but the people’s freedom, dignity and wellbeing. That is what this is about, let us be clear. One must not give unnecessary importance to the flags, although -it would be good to point out- it is not true that they are all the same. Flags have different meanings: behind some flags some have been persecuted, imprisoned, executed and sent people into exile, and this belongs to the memory of several generations. Some flags have symbolised the right of conquest while others, on the other hand, have been degraded to something folkloric. Lumping all flags together is not fair play.

The Real Catalonia -which some invoke despite having never been there- without doubt has many faces. And one of the most important of these is the one which demonstrated yesterday in Barcelona, having travelled there from cities and towns all over the country. This is the true Catalonia not a hologram. These are people who move fearlessly, with freedom, voluntarily. With the purse and the flag, peacefully.